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kevinhsieh,<br />
<br />
Your explanation is very helpful.<br />
Would it be better to install Hyper-V as a role or the Hyper-V Server standalone product?<br />
Thanks.
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kevinhsieh,

Your explanation is very helpful.
Would it be better to install Hyper-V as a role or the Hyper-V Server standalone product?
Thanks.

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You can do either, and they are functionally equal. To get started, the full installation of Windows 2008 R2 with Hyper-V is easier because you have the full GUI and local management tools. &nbsp;Hyper-V Server is built on Windows 2008 Core, which provides you with 2 command prompts when you login with no desktop and no GUI tools. It needs to be managed remotely. If you're going to have several hosts in a cluster I would go with Hyper-V Server.
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You can do either, and they are functionally equal. To get started, the full installation of Windows 2008 R2 with Hyper-V is easier because you have the full GUI and local management tools.  Hyper-V Server is built on Windows 2008 Core, which provides you with 2 command prompts when you login with no desktop and no GUI tools. It needs to be managed remotely. If you're going to have several hosts in a cluster I would go with Hyper-V Server.

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Does MS have a bare metal product that compares with ESX or XenServer? It seems that Hyper-V is a role that must sit on top of an OS.<br />
<br />
Thanks.
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Does MS have a bare metal product that compares with ESX or XenServer? It seems that Hyper-V is a role that must sit on top of an OS.

Thanks.

Microsoft Bare Metal Hyper Visor

Microsoft Virtual Server was a virtualization solution that facilitated the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Virtual machines are created and managed through a web-based interface that relies on Internet Information Services (IIS) or through a Windows client application tool called VMRCplus. Features included Linux guest operating system support, Virtual Disk Precompactor, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), x64 host operating system support, the ability to mount virtual hard drives on the host machine and additional operating systems support, including Windows Vista, and a volume shadow copy writer.

Microsoft Virtual Server

Virtualization is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including (but not limited to) a virtual computer hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources. Virtualization is usually the creation of a system that executes separate from the underlying hardware resources, or the creation of an entire desktop for systems located elsewhere, similar to thin clients.